As most Australians find themselves in a world somewhere between pandemic and endemic, Tahir Bilgiç finds himself back on the road.
The actor-comedian, whose television credits include 'Housos', 'Fat Pizza', and 'I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!', is performing at Sydney Comedy Festival. In 2022, his show is called 'Humans Scare Me'. The title’s a clear ode to COVID, but fans shouldn’t expect his offerings to be as straightforward.
“'Humans Scare Me' is really about human behaviour and what’s been thrown up in the last couple of years. I also touch on how we bow to a lot of things as a society. My classic [observational] stand-up will be the base, but I love to experiment, I love to take risks.”
“For example, last year I began to do magic, and I also made a big deal of the latecomers, like it was 'The Tonight Show' and they were my special guests.”
“So every time they came in there’d be fanfare and music, and it backfired on me – people started turning up late just to be on it! One day, four police officers rocked up!”
It’s that kind of unplanned variety that Tahir takes pride in, and though he won’t reveal what the big surprise in 'Humans Scare Me' is, it’s certain that his take-no-prisoners style will be clearly on show.
“Is anyone safe in 'Humans Scare Me'? No. But people love to be represented. That’s the point of it.”
“It’s funny, sometimes I do these bits about different nationalities and after the show someone will come up to me and say ‘What about Ecuador? You didn’t talk about us Ecuador people! Pick on us, point out what we do!’ And I tell them ‘I’m not a DJ, I’m not taking requests!’”
Speaking more about his audience, Tahir emphasises just how much his shows really are for everyone – no matter when (or where) they’ve seen him.
“My audiences are quite mixed these days. We get the young people discovering 'Fat Pizza' for the first time, we’ve got people who have been with me all the way, people of different backgrounds, people of different ages.”
Tahir is also keen to point out his other offering. His dabble last year in the world of live magic has returned in 'TAHIR – The World’s Best Worst Magician'. It's intended for kids and features his trademark catchphrase ‘fully sick’ as the magic words, with the performance running in the hours preceding 'Humans Scare Me' – so, in his words, “come to the magic show and hang around for the other one as well!”
Ultimately, when asked to sell 'Humans Scare Me' in one sentence, Tahir only needed two words: “Variety. Fun”. And if those aren’t spot on, nothing else is.
Tahir's 'Humans Scare Me' plays Comedy Store (Sydney Comedy Festival) 21 May.
